


to show her a light

by Damkianna



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Extra Treat, F/F, Holidays, Pre-Canon, Pumpkins, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 01:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12495044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: The abandoned research facility is safe—safe enough for Dr. Shaw to decide it might be worth celebrating a holiday.





	to show her a light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mlraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/gifts).



> You mentioned being interested in Rebecca/Shaw, and also fluff/feel-good fic, and also Rebecca and Shaw celebrating Halloween, and that turned out to be all I needed to start writing this for you, mlraven. :D Happy ToT! ♥
> 
> (Title adapted from the poem [Hallow-E'en, 1914](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/hallow-een-1914).)

 

 

The abandoned research facility is safe.

That's what Dr. Shaw says. Rebecca isn't sure. Dr. Shaw said her apartment wasn't safe, that they needed to go—but it _felt_ safe, to Rebecca. A place where everything belonged to Dr. Shaw, where there wasn't anyone around but Dr. Shaw. Rebecca had never felt safer.

The facility isn't like that. It will be, Dr. Shaw likes to say. Right now it's just them and Chase, with the whole huge empty place echoing around them. But more androids will come, and they'll make it their own, and it'll be a safe place for all of them.

Rebecca agrees, because she likes the way Dr. Shaw smiles at her when she does. And then she goes and walks the facility's whole perimeter, climbs to its upper levels and descends into the blackest depths of it. Just to make sure.

(Back at Dwarf Star, before she escaped—she hadn't really realized what she was capable of. She hadn't understood just how well they'd built her, just how different she was from them. How much stronger, how much faster.

When she'd finally found Dr. Shaw, she hadn't understood the look on Dr. Shaw's face, the urgency in her voice when she talked about leaving. And then, after a little while, she had: Dr. Shaw was afraid for her. Dr. Shaw wanted to protect her.

Rebecca had looked at her and had remembered the screaming, the blood, how remarkably easy it was to snap bone. And for the first time, it had occurred to her: she could protect Dr. Shaw, too.)

But everything's fine. She checks at least once every day, sometimes twice; and nothing's ever there. So maybe Dr. Shaw was right—maybe they are safe here. Maybe everything really is going to be all right.

Rebecca doesn't stop checking the perimeter, but she starts to feel like maybe she could.

And then one day she walks into Dr. Shaw's office, and everything is orange. Orange and holographic and rotating.

Rebecca steps cautiously further in and raises an eyebrow. "What's all this?"

Dr. Shaw looks up and smiles.

(She's started doing that—smiling, not because of anything Rebecca's said or done but just because she sees Rebecca, just because Rebecca's there.

Rebecca likes it.)

"I suppose it's a little silly," Dr. Shaw says. "Especially considering this planet has barely two degrees of axial tilt. And even if it had more, that would actually make it summer in this region—"

"But?" Rebecca prompts, before Dr. Shaw can get too carried away. Not that she doesn't like listening to Dr. Shaw talk; but she does actually want to know the answer to her question.

"But it's Halloween," Dr. Shaw says, looking a little sheepish. "By the standard galactic calendar developed with reference to Terra Prime, it's Halloween."

Rebecca tenses just a little bit, reflexive. Dwarf Star is on Terra Prime, its headquarters, that great gleaming tower that looms over everything—

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. That's not where she is anymore. The research facility is safe.

She looks up, and Dr. Shaw is watching her carefully, with that look on her face again—that look that says she's sad and sorry and worried, that she wants to make it so Dwarf Star never touches Rebecca again.

(She knows how Rebecca escaped. Rebecca told her. She knows what Rebecca hadn't at first: how well they built her, how much stronger she is, how much faster.

But she looks at Rebecca like that anyway.)

"I thought," Dr. Shaw begins, and then bites her lip and looks away. "Oh, I don't know. I suppose I thought we could all use a bit of a distraction. And this place could do with some brightening up."

Rebecca looks around. The orange certainly is bright, it's true. "What are they?"

"Pumpkins," Dr. Shaw says happily, and steps around her desk to draw Rebecca closer to one of the big rotating projections. "They're a sort of squash—a gourd."

Rebecca eyes it. "And the shapes on the side? Those aren't natural."

"No, no, they're cut out. People used to carve them. See, it's a face—those are the eyes, and that's the nose, and then the mouth."

"But they're yellow," Rebecca argues.

"Well, yes," Dr. Shaw admits. "It's—people used to put candles in them. To light them up from the inside. This isn't the most realistic rendering."

"Art," Rebecca says.

She remembers art. Dr. Shaw had been the one to argue for its inclusion into her course of study, early on. She hadn't always understood it, but she'd liked looking at it, even before Dr. Shaw had taught her some of the words people used to talk about it.

Some of the things Dr. Shaw had shown her had been beautiful. The pumpkin isn't quite at that level, Rebecca decides; but there's something nice about that big yellow gaptoothed smile, something that feels good. And art is about feeling things, Rebecca knows that much.

"Yes," Dr. Shaw is saying, with a laugh. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"I like it," Rebecca tells her, and then glances around, looking for other things that are different. "And that?"

"A ghost," Dr. Shaw explains. The hologram is running on a loop, fluttering across the ceiling of Dr. Shaw's office and then fading away into a corner, before reappearing on the other side.

Rebecca raises an eyebrow. "So Halloween is for gourds, and—ghosts."

And that, for some reason, makes Dr. Shaw look away. "It's for frightening things," she says quietly, gazing up at the pale flickering of the ghost. "For making frightening things less frightening—for looking right at what you're afraid of, and discovering you can bear it."

Rebecca thinks about Dwarf Star, about the way Dr. Shaw had sounded when she'd told Rebecca her apartment wasn't safe, and feels like maybe she understands why Dr. Shaw might have wanted to celebrate Halloween this year.

She touches Dr. Shaw's shoulder carefully, and tries to come up with something to say. "And you're scared of—bowls?"

Dr. Shaw turns and blinks at her, and then at the desk where she's pointing, and then laughs, sudden and startled. "No, no," she says, "that's not a decoration. That's candy." She leans over and picks the bowl up, moves it to the closer edge of the desk, so it's easier to see into. "You remember chocolate?"

"Yes," Rebecca says immediately, because it's true. Dr. Shaw hadn't been the one to introduce her to chocolate, but once she'd learned Rebecca liked it, she'd brought it more often than anyone else had.

"These ones are chocolate," Dr. Shaw explains, pointing to something wrapped in shiny blue foil. "And those, and I think those are, too. Some of them aren't chocolate, they taste like fruit—" and that's pink foil, yellow, and something else with a red speckly pattern, "—or just sugar. Some of them are sour, and some of them are sweet. Some of them are both."

Rebecca gazes down into the bowl, and then reaches out and sets her hand against the side, along the curve of it. Her attention is caught for a long moment by a funny little thought: by the idea that her fingertips are almost touching Dr. Shaw's. She likes that almost as much as she likes watching Dr. Shaw smile.

"Which one is your favorite?" she hears herself say.

"Licorice," Dr. Shaw says, pulling out something black and shiny with a little twist to it, and putting it into her mouth.

She chews it, and as she does her eyes close; it doesn't take long for her to eat it, to open her eyes again and grin at Rebecca, but for a moment—

For a moment the only thing on her face is enjoyment, sheer silent pleasure.

Rebecca feels her cheeks go hot, and finds herself wondering what other things might make Dr. Shaw look like that.

She looks into the bowl and picks out a piece of the stuff—licorice—for herself. She wants to love it the way Dr. Shaw does, wants to feel the same way about tasting it. And another prickle of heat starts working its way up her throat at the idea that her mouth and Dr. Shaw's will—will taste the same way, even if it's just for a minute. But she slides it onto her tongue and bites down, and—

Dr. Shaw bursts out laughing, and Rebecca forces herself to swallow with an effort but doesn't unwrinkle her nose.

"Really?" she can't help saying. "You _like_ that?"

"It's a bit of an acquired taste," Dr. Shaw allows, still grinning. "They aren't all like that, though, I promise. Here, try something else."

Rebecca picks one of the ones Dr. Shaw had said was fruit-flavored, next—she likes fruit, though not as much as chocolate. And that one is much better. That one is delicious; Rebecca understands what Dr. Shaw meant by sweet and sour at the same time, and she likes it, the combination and the gentle tang it leaves in her mouth.

"Better?"

Rebecca opens her eyes and smiles, and maybe she's just imagining it or maybe Dr. Shaw's cheeks have gone just a little bit pink.

(Maybe Dr. Shaw is thinking about what Rebecca's mouth tastes like, now.)

"Yes," Rebecca says, "I like that one," and immediately fishes three more with yellow foil out of the bowl. "Would you like one, Dr. Shaw?"

"Yes, thank you," Dr. Shaw says, and reaches out for Rebecca's hand—and then pauses. "And—Rebecca, would it make you feel uncomfortable to call me Irena?"

Rebecca thinks about it. It makes her feel tense, a little unsteady, somewhere in her gut or maybe her chest, or maybe both. But she's not sure she would call it uncomfortable.

"It's all right if the answer is yes," Dr. Shaw adds carefully.

(Because she's always careful with Rebecca, even though she knows Rebecca is unbreakable.)

And the way she says that, the way Rebecca trusts it to be true, is why the answer is no.

"No," Rebecca says aloud. "No, Irena, it wouldn't make me feel uncomfortable. I'd like that."

"I'm glad," Irena says, and when she takes the candy, her fingers linger against Rebecca's hand in a way that makes Rebecca feel like—like a pumpkin, Rebecca decides: all lit up from the inside out.

 

 


End file.
